The Average ER.org'er has $2.9M Net Worth, $84K/yr Spending, 3.4% Withdrawal Rate...

[NW-Bound]

He looks at your shoes only if they are Jimmy Choo.

By the way, you can do a lot with 30 acres. Maybe something like Butchart Gardens, and you can charge admission. Maintaining it will keep one really busy for sure. And forget about wild turkeys. You will need peacocks.

PS. Just finish the wood staining. Pre-staining the wood before mounting it is a lot nicer than staining it afterwards. And good luck to Amethyst on her Deck Restore thinggy. If it worked, carpenters would be out of their job.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm an INTP, so you're not alone.

That's good to know! Thanks!

P is my strongest characteristic - it's at the top of the range.

 

[Amethyst]

Awww...Deck is only 27 years old. A pretty good carpenter put it up. He is probably retired now.

And good luck to Amethyst on her Deck Restore thinggy. If it worked, carpenters would be out of their job.

 

[DEC-1982]

Good stuff Midpack. I apologize for pulling down the net worth/money averages. I will try to pull up the happiness and health averages.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

But I'm not too far off on many of these.

You are unique--just like everybody else.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I am definitely underqualified for this forum. I made 70 and flunked retirement. Doing OK, just not financially independent yet.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Hah! We have 30 acres of mountain land but I just let it go to trees.

Turkeys are getting annoying though. Yesterday, I kid you not, we had a group (gaggle?) of 15 turkeys walk up to our camper door and strut around. They know I will not pay $45 for a license to kill 2 of them when I can get one with a timer already stuck in it for $20.

We only have an average size lot and live in a city (but near some big parks with wilderness areas) and get turkey visitors. I think they are pretty cool. I stepped out of the car the other day and a flock was in the front yard, some with tail feathers out strutting their stuff.

 

[Skeptic]

You are unique--just like everybody else.

Not me: I'm the only person who isn't unique.

 

[MarieIG]

Not me: I'm the only person who isn't unique.

 

[unclemick]

Bragging! Bragging you say. It's not bragging if you really are that good - er I mean non humble.

INTJ, Left Handed, net worth way back 250k yes k. I remember Dory36 and am old enough to remember when we bragged about how cheap our yearly expenses were in ER.

heh heh heh - Cheap SOB but to paraphrase Mae West I drifted in the last two decades of ER.

 

[ls99]

I'm an INTP, so you're not alone.

Count me in, INTP -A.

 

[ls99]

I get confused with all of the various acronyms. Is an INTP the one who looks at his shoes when he talks to you or your shoes?

Not this one. The ladies are in close embrace when I am dancing with them. A long look into their eyes is worth more then their shoes, or mine.

 

[NW-Bound]

Awww...Deck is only 27 years old. A pretty good carpenter put it up. He is probably retired now.

Your carpenter apparently used better wood than mine did. My deck looked pretty bad after just 12 years, causing me to incur much expense and labor to replace. Still, after 27 years, even if the wood has not rot, I wonder what the appearance is.

For a thread with photos, see: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/deck-replacement-87832.html.

 

[Amethyst]

He used cedar. Back then it was relatively affordable. While it may not look brand new, and I am sure purists could find many flaws...I think it looks pretty good.

Your carpenter apparently used better wood than mine did. My deck looked pretty bad after just 12 years, causing me to incur much expense and labor to replace. Still, after 27 years, even if the wood has not rot, I wonder what the appearance is.

For a thread with photos, see: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/deck-replacement-87832.html.

 

[Amethyst]

Probably the one issue I see with your deck, is that there were so many planks butted together in a line. Our carpenter went to great lengths (ha) to find planks long enough that he didn't need to join them. I still remember him being worried that he could not find some of the very longest ones that were still good enough quality.

One of the railing sections has come loose, so I will probably be posting before long to ask about the best way to re-attach it. I mean, yes, use nails, but I'll be asking the right way to angle the nails, etc.

 

[NW-Bound]

The original planks that were used on my deck were 16' long. I do not think you can get anything longer than that. The largest dimension of my nearly 1000-sq.ft. odd-shaped deck is 55'. The composite Trex boards I bought and installed were also 16'. Trex makes 20' planks, but I did not buy them because they were unwieldy for me to handle.

The original boards were not cedar, nor redwood. If they were, I am sure that they would hold up better.

PS. Here's a point of reference. When you look at the photos that I posted in the mentioned thread, each of the railing sections is 8' long.

 

[RobbieB]

I'm getting my little 16 x 20 footer replaced this year. Going to be solid redwood and screwed (not nailed) so those annoying pop ups will not occur. Old 30 yr planks finally started to rot and sag. Not bad life out of Doug Fir.

 

[NW-Bound]

No, definitely no nails. Who does that anymore nowadays? The guys who built my original deck used screws, good ones that do not rust after 12 years. They are not galvanized, but a kind of steel that does not rust. I removed and saved them, though I do not know what to use them for yet. Got about 2/3 of a 5-gallon pail filled with these screws.

For my new Trex deck, I used their clips which leave the top of the planks unmarred by any screw holes. Love the clean look. Even better, I can remove the boards and reinstall/reposition them if necessary.

To tie in with the thread topic of net worth, as I am typing this my wife is watching an episode of a TV show where they show a deck being built that costs $400K. The episode before that, they show a $300K deck.

What kind of net worth does one need to spend that much on a deck?

 

[RobbieB]

Those are a lot bigger than mine I imagine. Yours is 3X the size of mine.

Hehe, I've been whacking those nails down now for years and they always pop back up. The nails rust thinner and the holes rot bigger. Still like wood though, my parents got the composite (MI snow) and I never liked it.

 

[Fermion]

We built our own deck on the house on the river we sold last year. It was an aircraft carrier of a deck, 50 feet long, 12 to 16 feet wide with 6x6 pressure treated posts set into steel anchors and 18" diameter 36" deep concrete footings. Insanely overbuilt but since we did all the work ourselves I think we had under $10,000 in it. We used 2x6 cedar for the decking. It held up pretty well but was weathered a bit when we sold it. Still solid and all, just needed sanding and staining.

We overbuild everything though. This RV I am typing in right now will probably still be here when man has left the planet for the stars.

 

[RobbieB]

That's what I'm thinking. If the new deck lasts another 30 years odds are it will out live me.

 

[NW-Bound]

Still has the TV tuned to that series called Megadecks on DYI cable channel. It's anything but DYi, hah! They now show a $550k deck being built. Only 1,800-sq.ft., but it's got fancy amenities, and on a difficult to build site. The glass panels for the enclosed section cost $95k already.

Much higher NW than mine obviously. About 20X more.

 

[W2R]

I'm getting my little 16 x 20 footer replaced this year.

Those are a lot bigger than mine I imagine. Yours is 3X the size of mine.

Your 16x20 footer sounds huge. It is about 4X the size of my little concrete patio. I don't have a deck but the patio is big enough and all that I desire.

 

[RunningBum]

I guess it's better to be comparing deck sizes than ...

 

[omni550]

Since the discussion has veered to decks, perhaps someone can clear this up for me.

I can understand building a deck if one is constructing something adjacent to their house and the access point (doorwall/sliders/door) is somewhere "way up in the air" and/or the deck is being built over a drop-off/slope.

I'm trying to understand a preference for building a deck at basically ground-level....or a foot or so above...on a level lot.

It seems as though decks have a lot of maintenance and upkeep over time, and if one has a level lot, why not instead build a concrete or cement paver patio that is a step or two down from the access point to the house, but requires little or no maintenance?

omni